Blood Revolt

It's a perplexing idea: get Canada's king of blackened war metal, J. Read (Axis of Advance, Conqueror, Revenge), together with Ireland's king of, uh, Celtic metal, A.A. Nemtheanga (Primordial, Plagued), for a project. Musically, Blood Revolt are more diverse than Read's endeavours often are, occasionally slowing down the pace and entering some melodic turf, but much of it is balls-out, balls-down, tear-off-your-fucking-balls war metal. Then the vocals come in, Nemtheanga laying down some blackened screaming, but also spending tons of time doing his folksy metal crooning thing. "My Name in Blood Across the Sky" is a highlight, a sprawling doom track in the middle of the disc where the dramatic vocals work perfectly with the loose, ragged playing. "Dead City Stare" is particularly strange, going from blasting war with flaky vocals to groove-laden death to Celtic-y blackened metal. Just barely, it works. "Bite the Hand, Purge the Flesh" doesn't; it sounds like a joke when it's polka stepping along, music all snarl, vocals all family-day-at-the-ren-fair-friendly. But despite the unusual nature of the album and its inherent missteps, this is actually a cool, interesting and, more or less, ass-kicker of a disc.